Jewel House
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The Jewel House are rooms in the fortress complex of the Tower of London in which the British Crown Jewels are kept. The depository of the crown jewels moved over the centuries, from 1303, over the fortress. The Jewel House consisted of separate buildings and rooms in other tower buildings. Since 1995 the Jewel House has been located on the first floor of the Waterloo Barracks in the innermost fortress ring of the tower.
Originally, the crown jewels were only kept in the Tower of London for safekeeping and well secured against the population. The jewels have only been on public display since the Stuart Restoration . The Jewel House is the most popular attraction within the tower. Guardian of the Jewel House is the Keeper of the Jewel House , an office that has coincided with the office of Resident Governor of the Tower since 1967 .
Guardian of the Crown Jewels
In its beginnings, the Jewel House was mostly the home of the keeper of the crown jewels. In 1207 a guardian of the crown jewels was appointed for the first time. Over the centuries, the name of this office has changed, so the guardian was called, among others, Keeper of the King's Jewels, Master of the Jewel House, Master and Treasurer of the King's Jewels and Plate or Keeper of the Jewel House. He is also the head of the treasury and thus holds the office of Lord High Treasurer .
The first custodian of the Crown Jewels after the restoration of monarchy in England in 1660 was Gilbert Talbot. Not wanting to live in the Tower, Talbot passed the actual job on to an old servant of his family, Talbot Edwards. Edwards managed to gain so much income from guided tours to the jewels that after Edward's death in 1674 his successor paid Talbot “500 old broad pieces of gold” in order to keep the lucrative position. In 1782 the Jewel House was abolished with the reintroduction of the court as such a department. The Lord Chamberlain took over the tasks.
From 1782 to 1814 there was only one resident guardian who had a servant on hand to take care of the daily patrols for him. In 1921 he was renamed a curator . The British government was responsible for the security of the jewels until well into the 19th century - the details, processes and income of the exhibition were left to the private discretion of the respective custodian of the jewels. In 1852 the keeper of the crown jewels was recognized as a member of the royal family . This was revoked in 1990 when the Historic Royal Places Agency took responsibility for the tower. In 1963 and 1968, a further curator was appointed to protect the crown jewels, thereby relieving the work of the Yeomen Warders .
History of the Jewel House
Crown jewels as part of the Great Wardrobe
In the early Middle Ages, the British crown jewels were important valuables of the kings who were in real use. They were loaned and kept in various secure locations such as the first floor of the White Tower or in Westminster . As such, they were part of and were kept with the Great Wardrobe of the king's household.
Since 1303, the crown jewels have mainly been kept in the Jewel House only, but the coronation regalia was in Westminster Abbey , which has housed the crown jewels in front of the Jewel House since it was built. In the time of King Henry III. and King James II, most of the crowns were in the Tower of London.
A separate jewel house
In the early 16th century, a first separate building was built, which was built as the Jewel House. Henry VII had an extension built on the south side of the White Tower in 1508. It was almost completely rebuilt 27 years later by Henry VIII , and the jewels were protected from the public by bars on the windows. The annex to the White Tower was not the sole storage location. In 1541, for example, some crown jewels were destroyed when the private house of the Keeper of the Jewels John Williams, 1st Baron Williams of Thame in the London Ward Cripplegate burned down.
In the English Civil War the kings were deposed and the crown jewels destroyed. The Jewel House continued to exist as a building but had no content since the destruction of the Crown Jewels in 1649.
With the restoration of Stuart and the accession of a new king to the throne, representation and splendor of royalty should also be shown. The Stuart kings had new crown jewels made. These should also represent royalty to the public outside of the coronation. In 1661 the old Jewel House at the White Tower was thoroughly renovated and prepared for the Crown Jewels. While the pieces worn for the coronation continued to be kept in Westminster Abbey, the other crown jewels have been on display in the Tower since the 17th century.
In 1668, however, the Jewel House moved again. Large quantities of gunpowder were stored in the White Tower at the time. The governor of the Tower cleared the immediate vicinity of the White Tower, as the chimneys of the directly adjacent houses were seen as a source of danger for the gunpowder. The jewels moved to the ground floor of the Martin Tower (then still called the Irish Tower ), the only access was through the private rooms of the Keepers of the Jewels on the first floor. The keeper of the jewel house was allowed to keep entry for viewing the jewels himself, making this a coveted position that applicants paid money to get.
In the 17th century, the display of the crown jewels in the Jewel House was more informal. The Keeper of the Jewels led the guests into the room of the jewels, closed the door and then unlocked the cabinet where he kept the jewels. This procedure worked for about 10 years until Thomas Blood was able to get hold of the jewels in 1661 , and he almost managed to escape from the Tower of London.
The near-theft caused changes in the storage: the jewels were placed in a kind of cage and could only be viewed through the bars. However, the individual bars were still far enough apart to reach through them, to touch the jewels and to feel their weight. The practice lasted until 1815 until a woman succeeded in bending the state crown of George I through the bars , so that it had to be repaired at great expense. As soon as there were visitors in the room, guards locked the door from the inside and outside. There was an armed guard in the Jewel House during visiting hours. For the first time there is also an exact list of the crown jewels.
The "desolate hole" in the 18th and early 19th centuries
A detailed description of the Jewel House and a visit to the Crown Jewels can be found in several travelogues from the 18th century. Zacharias von Uffenbach described the Jewel House in 1710 as a gloomy and cramped cave . After visitors entered the room, the door was locked from the outside. The visitors sat on a wooden bench and could look at the jewels through iron bars. Von Uffenbach was quite impressed by the exhibition itself. The report A Journey from Birmingham to London , published by the philosopher William Hutton in 1784. Hutton visited the Royal Armories and the Crown Jewels in the Tower . He describes the Jewel House as a “desolate hole, reminiscent of the cell of a damned man” in an “obscure corner of the tower” that was only sparsely lit by two weak candles. The room was now divided by a grid. Behind the bars stood a woman who, in the tone and style of a carnival screamer, praised the jewels on a shelf. Hutton had the impression that she didn't understand what she was saying and that she had obviously learned old leaflets by heart. This impression was shared by the traveler Christian Goede , who described the Jewel House as dark and gloomy in A Foreigner's Opinion of England in 1821 , in which a shrill farce with the crown jewels is then performed.
Since the crown jewels were already a well-known tourist attraction in the 19th century, the rooms in the Martin Tower were generally considered too narrow, too dark and too stuffy. They were more like a cave or the interior of a sailing ship than an exhibition room for the greatest treasures of the British Empire. The room was accessible directly from the tower entrance, so that its security was not considered to be outstanding. The crown jewels were kept in a cage.
From the 19th century
When the Grand Storehouse burned down in the immediate vicinity of the Martin Tower in 1841, the security measures that had now been established caused considerable problems. The only keys to the jewels were in the possession of Lord Chamberlain , whose whereabouts and handling of the key were unknown to the Tower crew. Only after the fire brigade had destroyed the security systems could the jewels be brought to safety.
On the instructions of Lord Chamberlain, financed by the income from the entrance fees and - unusual for the Tower - built by the Royal Engineers , a new Jewel House in neo-Gothic style was built directly on the south side of the Martin Tower. The entrance and the decorative facade of the tower were located inside the fortress ring, but the building went through the wall, so that the actual jewels were kept in the outer fortress ring of the tower. The living quarters of the guardian of the crown jewels were in the first part above the new Jewel Tower and directly connected to the Martin Tower. The Jewel House next to the Martin Tower, opened to the public in 1842, soon proved to be impractical. During the entire time it was in existence, the building was damp and, like its predecessor, only poorly lit. Post-completion inspections found that the new Jewel House was neither particularly fire-proof nor well protected against theft. Nevertheless, the Jewel House remained in use for another 20 years, as none of the possible sites was ready to invest in a new building again. Only in the course of the major renovation work under Anthony Salvin did the crown jewels move into the Wakefield Tower in 1869 .
Salvin had suggested moving the Jewel House into its own new building, but this did not get through to the tower administration. In order to prepare the Wakefield Tower in the south of the inner fortress ring as a Jewel House, Salvin had the floor there reinforced, a new entrance built and the remains of an old stone bridge repaired that connected the St Thomas's Tower with the Wakefield Tower. The Jewel Keeper himself moved into St Thomas's Tower and had direct access to the Crown Jewels.
Today's Jewel House has been housed inside the Waterloo Barracks since 1967 . From 1967 to 1996 it was in a vaulted cellar of the Waterloo Barracks. Since 1996 it has been housed in an independent extension of the Waterloo Barrack. Since then, visitors have been driven past the jewels on a conveyor belt.
References
Web links
literature
- MR Holmes: The Crown Jewels. In: John Charlton (ed.): The Tower of London. Its Buildings and Institutions. Her Majesty's Stationery Office, London 1978, ISBN 0-11-670347-4 , pp. 62-68.
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c d Holmes in: The Tower of London. 1978, p. 62.
- ↑ a b c Holmes in: The Tower of London. 1978, p. 64.
- ↑ a b c d e f g h i j k Edward Impey and Geoffrey Parnell: The Tower of London. The Official Illustrated History Merrel London 2000 ISBN 1-85894-106-7 pp. 106-110.
- ↑ a b c d Holmes in: The Tower of London. 1978, p. 63.
- ^ Hodgson: A Short History of the Tower of London, including a Particular Detail of its Interesting Curiosities; with a Brief Account of many of the most celebrated Kings of England, Noblemen, and others, whose Figures in Armor, and sitting on Horseback, are exhibited in the Horse Armory . J. Macrone: The London and Westminster review, Volume 31, 1838, pp. 28 ff.
- ^ Tower of London World Heritage Site - Management Plan. (PDF; 3.2 MB) Historic Royal Palaces, 2007, p. 12 , archived from the original on December 18, 2007 ; Retrieved July 18, 2012 .
Coordinates: 51 ° 30 ′ 29 " N , 0 ° 4 ′ 34" W.